User interfaces are becoming increasingly sophisticated by allowing access to numerous types of application data and/or application systems. For example, a typical customer service application may include a user interface to allow a customer service agent to navigate among a variety of types of data related to a customer. Such customer data may include contact information, service request information, order information, activity information, and so on. A customer service agent interacting with a customer may need to navigate quickly all of these types of information during, for example, the course of a single telephone conversation.
In order to provide personalized service, it is desirable that customer service agents appear to “know” the customer immediately when starting an interaction and throughout its duration. Since customer service centers receive a large volume and variety of customer interactions during a typical day, each agent needs to have quick access to important customer information, such as contact name, account number, phone number, and so on. However, even though changing application systems and/or between types of application data may be possible using a single user interface, typically no context information is provided by the user interface as the user navigates from one area to another. Often, the customer service agent writes down the customer's name, telephone number, or other important context information to remember while the agent navigates the customer's data. This work-around hinders agent productivity and can lead to dissatisfactory customer interactions when such critical information is not available and the agent must ask the customer to repeat information.
What is needed is a customizable user interface that can provide persistent context information while a user navigates among different screens and views of the user interface and/or different types of application data.